Talk:How To
= Main discussion page = =House Cleaning= I think we should declare a month of cleaning up the site. Our little site is starting to get attention, (at least a little). We have 190+ howtos, 80+ guides. A decent start. I think we should go through all the help and intro pages make sure they are as user friendly as possible. Lets make them as pretty as the home page, clean up spelling and grammar. Tell me what you think? If everyone agrees, i think we should put a large statement one the main page. This is our current list of site needs Template:Site needs :ZyMOS 04:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC) I agree that doing a clean up is a good idea. I visited the page Guide to getting started on Wikihowto and I think it contains too much information and is not helpful in it's current state. I have started making separate pages so that it can be separated into smaller, more useful and reader-friendly pages. I have mostly been working on Guide to understanding how Wikihowto works - I think it should be listed on the Main Page because it would allow a new user to quickly understand how wikihowto works. :A vivid dreamer 16:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC) Other stuff we can do *Import all articles from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How-tos_bookshelf verbatim. add more.... (We decided NOT to do this because it would create two places that would be improved seperatly, and would not benifit the visitors) What is a portal? I've been doing some tidying up of some of the main information pages. The page Guide to getting started on Wikihowto mentions "portals", and gives the definition "Portals are to help people find what the need when they are not sure of the exact name." I understand the basic concept, but I have never seen a portal page on wikihowto. Do any exist? If so, could someone tell me the name of one so I can look at it and better understand what they are about? Thanks. --A vivid dreamer 15:53, 10 July 2006 (UTC) :They were an idea for a better implementation of categories, but never really got past that stage. The original idea was to have objects in categories and no other pages. We need to have some implementation of categories, so we need to have a discussion on this. so how about here --> Talk:Main_Page/Page Organization Call for reading tag The call for reading tag currently reads: :"Discuss about the proposal and show your support. Get involved, help with the domain name and the project name." The wording needs to be changed to: :"Discuss the proposal and show your support. Get involved, help with the domain name and the project name." (that is, the word "about" needs to be removed from the current tag). I would change it but don't know how to edit tags. Thanks. A vivid dreamer 07:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC) :Fixed ::Thankyou :) Wikihowto logo finished I have finished the Wikihowto logo. If you want the gimp file with the layers, just ask. once the international pages are large enough ill make an international one like we discussed before. If everyone agrees i would like this to be the official logo(for now), and i think it should be the logo in the top right corner. We here it is. Image:Wikihowto-logo-2.1-stable-lg.png Image:Wikihowto-logo-2.1-stable-sm.png Let me know what you all think and if it should be our logo... ZyMOS 05:51, 13 July 2006 (UTC) :I like it and think it should be the logo. A vivid dreamer 09:22, 15 July 2006 (UTC) :I think this one is great. By the way, maybe you could create release it's source code? I think of creating open-source things, I start thinking that we should have an ability to upload various software files, including the 3D drawings, modelling software files and so on. Inyuki 05:06, 17 July 2006 (UTC) :::I thought non-standard format files were not allowed on wikia. I tried uploading a tar.bz2 once and it complained. But it allowed the gimp image format, So Here It Is. :::Image:Wikihowto-logo-2.1-stable.xcf :::ZyMOS 23:48, 17 July 2006 (UTC) ::::That's fantastic, but it's slightly too large to be the logo. Could you make a version that's no more than 150px in width please? Angela (talk) 06:51, 14 August 2006 (UTC) :::::I resized the image so it is now 150px wide. --A vivid dreamer 11:47, 20 August 2006 (UTC) Bots Is there a place on wikihowto dedicated to discussing the "bots" used on wikihowto? Also, ZyMOS, are you the only person working on the bots or do other people currently work on them too? :yes i am the only one working on them at this time. ZyMOS 22:23, 15 July 2006 (UTC) Ideas for bots (even if these ideas are not implemented until much later when there is more help to create them, as I imagine it is a long process to write a bot) discusion moved to ZyMOS 22:23, 15 July 2006 (UTC) Naming pages that are specifically about Wikihowto Is there a page-naming system for pages within Wikihowto that are specifically about Wikihowto? I've noticed that there are a few pages with "About:" in the title, or "Wikihowto:" in the title. Should all pages that are about wikihowto be given a special kind of page name? These are the pages that I think should be given a special page name: *Guide to getting started on Wikihowto *Guide to understanding how Wikihowto works *Howto register and log in on a MediaWiki site *Howto write a new Object page on Wikihowto *Howto modify an existing Howto page on Wikihowto *Howto write a new Howto page on Wikihowto *Howto write a new Guide page on Wikihowto *Howto create a new page on Wikihowto *Howto edit an existing page on Wikihowto *Guide to editing pages on Wikihowto *add more.... I think that all these pages could have "Wikihowto:" added to the beginning of them. For example, "Guide to getting started on Wikihowto" would change to "Wikihowto: Guide to getting started on Wikihowto". What do other people think? There could also be a bot which collects pages beginning with "wikihowto:" and puts them on a list, similar to the bots that collect howtos and guides and puts them on lists. --A vivid dreamer 08:52, 19 July 2006 (UTC) :Perhaps these pages just need to be listed on the help page. A vivid dreamer 08:52, 7 August 2006 (UTC) howtowiki and thinkcycle ( http://www.thinkcycle.com ) ThinkCycle is an academic, non-profit initiative engaged in supporting distributed collaboration towards design challenges facing underserved communities and the environment. ThinkCycle seeks to create a culture of open source design innovation, with ongoing collaboration among individuals, communities and organizations around the world. -Inyuki (discussion moved to Talk:Small Economy) Categories in Wikihowto Please see the discussion I have started at Talk:Wikihowto proposal. It is in relation to using categories in Wikihowto. --A vivid dreamer 10:03, 5 August 2006 (UTC) Layout of Main Page I have been working on a new layout for the main page. I have saved it here: User:A vivid dreamer/experimenting. I think it should be the main page. Let me know what you think and if you think it should be our main page. A vivid dreamer 05:27, 6 August 2006 (UTC) : I've updated the main page after making a few changes. moa3333 22:01, 8 August 2006 (UTC) I prefered it when the "Tools to help you explore and learn..." and "Tools to help you contribute..." boxes were side by side because it clearly illustrated the "give and recieve"/"teach and learn" theme of wikihowto. I also don't think the philosophical line really belongs in the "Tools to help you explore and learn..." box because the wording refers to both learning and teaching, where as that box is really about how to learn from wikihowto - not teach. I think it was better where you had it before... under the logo. Other than that, I like the changes. --A vivid dreamer 13:31, 9 August 2006 (UTC) When I was working on this page, I was aiming to illustrate the theme that Inyuki has mentioned "Teach!" and "Learn!" by having two similar style boxes side by side which gave the reader tools(links to pages to help them) to either teach or learn. *Tools to help you explore and learn from Wikihowto = LEARN! *Tools to help you contribute to Wikihowto = TEACH! I think this theme is good because it's very simple and quite catchy. I was hoping to keep the links in each of these boxes separate: *links that help people teach (in one box)... and... *links that help people learn (in the other box). I originally included the "search box" in the "tools to help you explore and learn from wikihowto" table, because it is the equivilent of the "create a new page" box that appears in the "tools to help you contribute to Wikihowto" table. I think a search box should go back in the "tools to help you learn" box AND appear at the top of the page (as I agree with you, it needs to appear at the top of the page so a viewer doesn't have to scroll to get to it. --A vivid dreamer 14:09, 9 August 2006 (UTC) :Ok, now it is fixed. I don't know how to make the search show twice on the same page. moa3333 12:58, 10 August 2006 (UTC) Questions about object pages When an object has two definitions should we just include all howtos and guides related to both definitions? or is there another way of doing it? for example, the object "table" could refer to a table as in a piece of furniture, or a table as in the kind used in a word processor. Would the object page "table" refer to both definitions of table? A vivid dreamer 08:23, 8 August 2006 (UTC) : We can use disambiguation pages just like wikipedia does. moa3333 22:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC) The Open Source Business? (Slashdot) Here I recently noticed a brainstorm on this question on the slashdot.org : Ted wonders: "Being an advocate of the open source software movement for some time, I'm wondering how and if the principles of open source software could be applied to a new type of open source business. In a world where people slave away for the sole profit of a board of directors and merciless shareholders, is there room for a new type of organization that throws away the archaic and monolithic organizational structure of today and from there form a company that has its direction dictated by all of the members that run it. An organization where everyone has an equal say in what goes on. There isn't any limit on how many people can be involved (the more the better, in fact) as long as they can be useful. Could this be the way of the future?" The replies to this you can read on the slashdot: * http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/13/013213 The Author of this post has a web page: * http://www.compsoc.com/~cmulvey/index.html --User:Inyuki Contributers We now have almost a dozen regular contributors, we are really starting to get on our feet, thank you all ZyMOS 20:16, 18 August 2006 (UTC) :I feel it the same way too, ZyMOS :-) Inyuki 15:43, 19 August 2006 (Japan time) wiki linux and our site Ive been thinking about this for a while and am stuck. wiki-gentoo is an amazing resource for Linux stuff http://gentoo-wiki.com/Index:HOWTO, and i bet there are similarly good sites for most distributions. their howtos are well developed and their sites are well used, we cant compete with such a site in the field of Linux, and probably all of the info on our site Linux is far inferior to such sites. Our site is way to small to expect them to join us. so what should we do. Should we add external links to such howtos. I have been hesitant to do so in the past because our site shouldn't be a link list. So any ideas.... :ZyMOS 03:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC) :: I think we should ad links and siple description when possible. While in wikipedia stub pages are not intresting, here links can be very usefull. Especialy links to other wikis. Anyway, the howtos here will always be less technical than on any wiki like gentoo wiki - thats why we nead to have a howto here, even with less informaion that on wiki gentoo. moa3333 17:58, 30 August 2006 (UTC) :: We cannot be the only source of information on the internet. By nature, internet has no central server. I think we can make all intresting information converge here with links, and as much as we can create owr own content pages. If we do not use links, we loose many informations on the internet. When we will grow, there will be less links, but there will always be links. Well, See it like the diference between Sourceforge and Freshmeat. Not everyone has used Sourceforge for his open source project. This is why Freshmeat contains almost only links to various projects.... It does make sense to use links instead of hoping to centralise all the internet like in the old days... moa3333 23:46, 31 August 2006 (UTC) :::the freshmeat and sourceforge is a good analogy. The question is do we want to be like one or the other, or a mix. My understanding of what you are saying is we should be a mix, but ideally closer to source forge. however looking at the Wikipedia site as the model. It is very close to sourceforge. Its goal is to be the source of information(while citing references). A very non-ideal page is one that has little info and a link to a better description. The linked site could be amazing, but it would not fit their model, and would probably be stubbed or deleted. I think we are saying the same thing. Since our site is small we must start out with links and then create our pages from their info, or better..... I guess my question is for these sources (wiki gentoo) they are doing the same thing as us, (better), so should we even try to make a parrellel page, even if it is just a page that says goto wiki-gentoo page on xxxxsxsfsrwerqdqw? After thinking about it, i think this is what we should do, as you said above. And the long term vision of such a page would be that our page would ultimately grow and become so good as to become fairly independent of the link. Similar to a crappy wikipedia page that gets stubbed and becomes greater that the original source(more or less) :::ZyMOS ::::Well yes, and we could create an article that is not gentoo-only. We might explain how to do it in other distributions as well... There are two functions: one is to alow someone to find the google wiki page without searching google 10 howers and the seccond is to add informations that will alow other people that do not use gentoo to find their solution. Finaly the article can become beter for gentoo users also but this is not the most important as long as there is a gentoo wiki. Debian ans BSD users will be able to add their contributions. So it will not be the people on gentoo wiki that will come here, but the people that think the gentoo wiki is not good for them (Debian, BSD, etc). They will like to have a link to the gentoo wiki instead of forking the content and then they will add on Wikihowto a few more information that si not on the gentoo wiki. This will fight also monopolism even in do-it-yourself things and will promote diversity. moa3333 19:33, 2 September 2006 (UTC) Collaboration with Wikiversity This new BETA Wikiversity is very close to Wikihowto in many ways. I think we should try to go "hand in hand" with them. It has only 800 registered members as of now. moa3333 13:15, 6 September 2006 (UTC) Script I thought the wikia database wasn't getting updated so i wasn't running the script. I was wrong. It was updated in the last 2 days. I will start running the script semi-daily again. Ill eventially make it a cron job ZyMOS 03:47, 9 September 2006 (UTC) WikiAyuda Hello! I wish tell that I have created WikiAyuda, one wiki similar to WikiHow in Spanish. At the beginning, i did not know that this project exits. I hope that we may collaborate. Greetings and sorry for my poor english. --Jorgechp 21:02, 24 September 2006 (UTC) http://es.howto.wikia.com/ : Great, the more languages the better. One concern. WikiHow is trademarked by http:www.wikihow.com so our name is Wikihowto, I dont know how this translates in Spanish, but i have a friend from Spain i can ask. Or if you have any suggestions. Anyways thanks, ZyMOS 04:04, 25 September 2006 (UTC) ::i put a link to the spanish page on the main part but its not dont the proper way and im not sure how to corrrect it. 'es:Portada' should link properly ZyMOS :::I reported the problem to Zuirdj. Greetings --Jorgechp 18:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC) Database and script they finally fixed the backup database files, so i can run my page sorting and conting script ZyMOS 06:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC) Wikihowto logo duplicated I think that if we have the Wikihowto's logo, it is not very nice to repeat the same logo in the centre of the page. How do you think? Inyuki 10:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC) Searchbox duplicated Well, the same is about the searchbox. Wiki users are quite aware that the searchbox is on the left, so, I believe it is not necessary to put it into the centre, as Google does. How do you think? Inyuki 10:36, 6 November 2006 (UTC) House-cleaning related experiences in using my personal wiki for organizing info, and how they could applied here The experiences I have been running one personal Wiki for management of contacts and other kind of information for some time. When I started my personal wiki, I did not need to explain some deep ideas for someone, so the most important things that I need were: 1) To see the list of all the pages that I have written; 2) To search for them using search; 3) To see different pages by pressing different category. So, in my personal wiki, I only needed the main page to be convenient for starting new page, and viewing the pages. So, I kind of used the following order to make my main page look good for me: 1) Create-article box 2) Category line 3) Display all the articles tag This was somewhat effective way to organize things, so I tried to copy my template to a newly started Concepts wiki. You can see it here: http://concept.wikia.com It was easy to apply it here, because I was starting something anew, and there was not so much mess, unfinished articles and so on. Of course, Google can be finidng what's necessary in all the messy internet (And I think Google's goal is to do particulary that -- it is to "lead" a person directly where he wants, not to the place that is linking to that place, but rather directly) How these experiences could be applied to Wikihowto Well, because the Lithuanian language wikihowto was kind of empty, I tried this way of organizing it. ( http://lt.howto.wikia.com ) I started, and I like it's simplicity. If I needed to search, I could search using the left hand search box. If I had more article, categories, as in the Concepts wiki would be useful. I also like the straightforwardness of creating an article with the click of a button. (However, when I want to create a new article in the English version, I have to scroll down to find that input box, or I have to create an article indirectly.) Yes, our usage of links for organizing in object-style is a more universal solution, but it is hard to create so many links. Yet the goal is to create the very information. (Google will find them better, if we won't organize them properly.) Yea, maybe we could not compete with some online resources on linux yet, but we could do that in some other geeky areas like chemistry, biology, math, physics, other kinds of science. Inyuki 11:16, 6 November 2006 (UTC) An idea from the Main Page This thought in the Main Page: "Wikihowto is an evolution of knowledge: since all is always and everywhere available, you decide what is worth learning (experienced by yourself) and what is worth sharing (experienced by others with feedback - so that your memory will not become superfluous)." Gave me an idea: "Since all human activity can be broken down to usage of algorythms, I think algorythms is what we have to share. These algorythms are being theoretically already defined(!) in Wikipedia (you can take a look, everything can be nounized, e.g., Wikipedia:Gradient descent), so, I think it is more meaningful to concentrate on something like giving real-life examples of their applications, and DIY tasks to practise them with." Also, I think redefining complex scientific notation-based algorythms with easy-to-understand procedural English code could be a good way to explain many algorythms. For example, see Gradient descent. Inyuki 22:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC) :I this it looked allot better the other way, and i think most people would agree. A main page is suppose to be pleasing to the eye. the image could be smaller so i made this one Image:Wikihowto-logo-2.1-stable-med.png :Algorith is a technical term and i dont think we should make our site apear to be a computer, science, math site. I agree the slogan needs work but we should keep it general... :ZyMOS ::Okay, well, I have changed some of the content, so that the page looked more similar to the one before changes. I agree that the image is representative, and we could keep it until we have an international page, like the Wikipedia does. As we have such international page, we could move the big logo into it, and remove it from the English version wikihowto. ::I just added some editing and organizing tools above, for easier creation of new articles. ::Inyuki 13:06, 8 November 2006 (UTC) ::: The main page is messy... Where is the search box? I don't have any search box using my skin on the top of the page... moa3333 19:11, 10 November 2006 (UTC) :::: Oh, didn't know that. Well, the default skin does. I saw this problem in the mobile phone version too, so maybe need both create and search boxes up there. Inyuki 19:44, 10 November 2006 (UTC) :::::I tried to combine the best of all three worlds, tell me what you think, ZyMOS